larger issues

 

there's just no telling where larger spaces and room to work will take a person.



several of the tablecloths in that lot are what I would call "service weight". Although they have a beautiful pattern loomed through, there is almost no diagonal give which made me think it would be a good base to build on ..but it's so starkly white.
The empty space has as much presence at the shapes I've basted on....there are more.

(6'x6')

blizzard

There's a snowstorm in my studio! I lucked into an enormous lot of damask tablecloths on ebay last week. I am going to have to haul this and the rest to the laundromat for a harsh thrash before any dyefest can begin..there's starch, fabric softener and other loving touches that will get in the way of a good dye result.

This is day 1 of a short stay-cation for Jim and I. This morning we are both doing chores but I am hoping to persuade him to a late lunch and a movie since the rain has put a cramp in his plans for the day.

I spent the morning filling the envelopes that have come rolling in with scraps and snips from baskets all over the place.
I feel like a crack dealer, giving away the "first taste" of hand dyed vintage cloth for free...and then, they'll be baaaack for more!   Off to the post office.

Richland WA, Huntington Beach CA, Berea Ky, Mascotte FL, Calimesa CA, Canfield OH, Wiscassett ME, and Crescent City CA – heads up! Your packages are on the way!

I'm also fooling with Colin's little Canon Elph since he has misplaced (somewhere in the hell of his possessions) my little Fuji. It's got too many options.

I recently started wearing a watch again because I am constantly (but silently) bitching out my customers for not knowing what date or time it is.

 It's a good thing I have a few days off.

 If one more fool replies "ten minutes ago" when I ask what DATE and TIME an incident occurred, I might hunt them down in whatever timezone they are in and slap them silly. 

And go ahead and give me another phone number without the area code, you huckleberry, and see what happens...THERE'S A WIDE WORLD OUT THERE!!  I feel better now...

the saturday mail

The replies have started coming in from the runner-ups in the giveaway and I never imagined that people would send me THINGS!  besides all the fabulous postage. Wonderful, wordless salmon songs by Jon Parmentier and a wonderful handmade sachet filled with Maine Christmas tree  balsam that just transported me and, yeah verily, led me astray to strong drink. (YO HO, I hear the pirates sing).

When I was growing up my parents found the resources to haul  all of us up to Cape Cod each summer for a week. The cheeky Hyannisport address might  impress some but we stayed in a cold water, knotty pine cabin. I did wave at the Presidential yacht as it motored by one day on it's way back to Hyannis next door.

 We slept in  wooden bunks that were just the size of a small man's coffin and I loved every minute we were there. One of my prized possessions was a little calico cat that was stuffed with balsam needles. To this day, the scent of seacoast pines does me way better than Calgon.

I couldn't sleep last night; fretful with small mother-worries, so I went downstairs and poured myself four fingers of some Pacific coast grape's blood and drank it down like medicine all the while trying hard to taste the wonderment promised on the artsy label when all I could find was red kerosene.

So I lay awake in the dark, mildly drunk, with my Ipod in my ears and the little balsam sachet balanced over my wakeful third eye, until about 4am.

Now the house is redolent with sausage and peppers and noisy with men working on machines and I'm getting sleepy and must nap because I have to work at 3:45.   Kefaya! Tonight I will start picking scraps for those envelopes.

true(er) colors

Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are at the discrepancy between this one and the one I posted the other day. That was shot flat on the bedroom floor with only the feeble light from the overhead fixture.

This up on the design wall in the studio with just overcast morning light - closer to the harsh  truth and revealing my usual shortcomings..lack of value changes and/or balance. But  I'm not going to flush the baby down the terlet just yet.The mother cloth underneath it all is especially disappointing.

I was looking at Shell Vapors again and paid attention to where my eye was going and when I happy with what I was seeing and where I gave it a pass and moved on, six square inches at a time.

There are maybe enough YESs here to go ahead and work over the NOs one by one. Haste makes scraps, although a lot of you are happy about that, aren't you.... :)

on the design floor

I hate to say it out loud but it looks like I evicted this cold from my head finally.  All advice was welcome and some actually used...like sleep, tea, and more sleep.

 When I got up this morning I had a vision of moving around shapes and colors. Since the design wall is presently unavailable I'm working on the bedroom floor. This is very tentative (and large) and I'm not going to stampede it.  pins only for the moment. I spent a good hour just looking at Shell Vapors last evening and want more of what that one evokes only stronger.





and some of us just lay around vogue-ing

naptime

We are exhausted.
I've been fighting with a cold since Saturday (that remedy failed me)  and it was a good thing I did not have to work yesterday. After filming the drawing I spent the rest of the day feeling like Jabba the Hutt looks. Today, a little better but needing a nap now. Solar flares, full moon and a perfect spring day....zzzzzzzzzzzzz.zzzzzzzzzzzz....

I went to the grocery store yesterday and stood in front of the cold remedies like a drooling dolt for five minutes unable to settle on any boxed  promises and then walked out empty handed. Today, a snootfull of VicksVaporub and hot tea per my sister. Earl Grey with a dash of lime & grenadine. 

and the winner is

believe it or not we got this in one take!

contest CLOSED

midnight tonight is your last chance to enter

shopkeeping

I spent the morning digging about in the studio, checking over inventory and putting up some new offering of hand dyes over in the shop.  Even though winter's chill is back in Georgia,  dye days will be on me before I know it -
the  tree frogs said so.

 I'm finally sharing some of the proceeds from last seasons adventures in going crazy with color.

I know that natural dyeing is all the trend and the delicacy and subtlety of the work is beautiful, but for me, I crave intensity in every direction so I flagrantly overdose my cloth with Procion MX..(.the good folks at ProChem bless me each night, I'm sure) and there will be more adventures with soywax as both resist and carrier.  There will be discharging and overdyeing and painting..things that have not yet occurred to me, stuff  I dream about and wake to try the next day as the mood moves me.

the cure for the common head cold

..is a few rounds Alka Seltzer for colds over 12 hours of doing not much of anything. Sleep if you can and follow up with a generous portion of General Tso's chicken to incinerate any remaining germs and sterilize the sinus tracts. Feeling much better, thanks.

Today - a little mending,  a mountain of laundry folding and a lot of Mad Men and Killing.

I was lucky enough to get on board with the pilot of the Killing last year and keeping up with it became quite obsessive.

The storyline may sprawl and wander, the locale would make most folks list "contemplating suicide" as a hobby but the characters and the acting are compelling. Hope the new season will continue to deliver. Catch up if you can.

This was my first exposure to Mad Men. The premise was repellent to me back when it first aired and, although the two episode I watched today had their saving graces, I don't think I'll become a fan unless someone promises me that Draper will drop out and get real.

Back in the real day, I was the teenaged babysitter observing on the fringes of many of the lives portrayed in this series. The  hypocrisy and desperation of the characters was like bad BO they all stewed in under their suits and shirtwaist dresses.  Society and advertising were still struggling mightily to steer young women into bunny costumes and/or the indentured servitude of marriage with all of it's buying power. I won't start in on my rant about the United States of Advertising. I refused to buy into it back then and still opt out at every opportunity.

spring excitement

I keep picking this one up and looking for what should come next but not finding anything. Let's stick a fork in it then and get it mounted!






I pity the rest of the country suffering under the misery of bad weather - all the windows and doors in my house are open and warm breezes are sighing through. I feel like I'm in the crow's nest of a tall ship.

The sky is deep blue with bruised edges where the bad weather will be coming from once the sun goes down. We'll be ducking and covering under thunderstorms tonight.

The new dye  colors are on their way via UPS and the US mail will be bringing a special treat for the whole family - tickets for the first baseball game of the season at the Braves minor league park nearby.

They've come up with a great promotional exhibition - "The Braves All Stars vs. the Future Stars" or as they are know here, the Baby Braves. It should be a great night!